


Pretzel Break

by marsakat



Series: Wormler's Adventures [2]
Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Crack, Gen, M/M, Magic, POV Second Person, Surreal, wormler - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-28
Updated: 2016-08-28
Packaged: 2018-08-11 14:13:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7895743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marsakat/pseuds/marsakat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your shopping trip is interrupted by a friend in need. A friend with a very long neck who cannot stop crying.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pretzel Break

**Author's Note:**

> Wormler has returned as Wormler tends to do. It probably happens at night, right.

Imagine

You're at the mall food court. You've got a cinnamon pretzel with the caramel dipping sauce from Wetzel's pretzels. Most of your shopping is done. You're sitting alone, and your mind drifts to your pet fish. Lenny. He's a great friend. He listens to your problems--you're going to buy him a castle to go into his lovely aquarium. After the pretzel break of course.

"Hello friend" a voice startles you from your reverie. It's quiet, soft, and almost a little hoarse. As if wanting to appear smaller. A figure clad in camouflage coat slides into the chair across from you.

It's Wormler. You can see the coils of his faceheadneck undulating underneath the hood of the coat.

You offer him a wan smile. "How have you been?" He's your friend after all, though you never return each other's text messages. A constant circle of one sided conversations between two people.

"I've been most excellent, thank You," wormler replies. "I have a whole crowd of friends and lots of ice cream parties. The other day I went to the zoo to see penguins, and it was so much fun."

"Great!" You try to say cheerily, but you could not fail to notice the tears dripping down Wormler's face, soaking the table and destroying the remains of your pretzel.

"Yes, I am doing so well. Everything is....is fine," Wormler lets out a single sob. The eyes-nose-mouth-ears part of his faceheadneck disappears into the hood of the camouflage coat.

All you see is tanned flesh and muffled cries are barely distinguishable over the atmospheric mall food court soundtrack.

"What's wrong?!" You exclaim and reach out to pat Wormler's arm soothingly, but he hisses and slides under the table  
His faceheadneck unfurls from the hood and wraps around the table and you, until his reddened eyes are near yours.

"Nothing is wrong!" He insists but you give him A Look. You're used to his flair for the dramatic. You don't buy into this act, which is purely a defense mechanism.

"Buddy, c'mon. I'm your friend. You can tell me anything" you said firmly, and draw a Build-A-Bear from a bag at your feet. Wormler makes a noise of delight and nuzzles the bear.

"Please let me help you," you say, and Wormler sighs.

"It's- it's..." He almost seemed incapable of saying what was wrong. "It's Josh. He's...gone"

"Gone? Gone where? He's probably in Brookstone trying out the massage chairs." This isn't the first time Wormler's freaked out over separation from Josh. Another time he almost was put down by a tranquilizer gun because of a rampage through a candle shop when Josh got distracted and lost in a Sears' lawn mower department.

"I knew you wouldn't understand" Wormler's head flailed in distress. "This time he's Gone. For real. My Joshua. He's Gone to I don't know where and he's probably scared and hurt cuz there's Bad People out there"

"Who are the bad people?" Your voice is hushed. You know what Josh is. You know he's a powerful and capable necromancer but there's dark forces out there even too much for him.

"We don't speak their names," Wormler hissed. He dipped his head in a different bag at your feet to produce a pack of lightbulbs. One of the lightbulbs in your chandelier keeps blowing out. The other three work fine but the last one is a pain.

"What happened? Where's Mark? Can he help?" You're getting worried. If Josh wasn't actually lost, he'd normally have already shown up in the narrative.

"Um, well. Mark, he's uh-- He's divided. He's half himself at the moment. He's literally in half," Wormler planted his face in the Build-A-Bear. The bear is wearing a fireman's outfit. Looks like you all need saving right now.

"Which half?" You hope is the top half. That would be more useful in this situation.

"Diagonal but mainly the left" Wormler licked at the crumbs of cinnamon sugar on the table.

"Don't do that. Too many germs." You wipe at his tongue with a napkin.

"See? That's why I need my Joshua! Joshua with the kaleidoscope hair and soft clothing," Wormler's eyes released four new, big teardrops

"Don't worry! We'll get him back," you try to sound confident but your shaking hands guiding Wormler to stand and follow you to your yellow minivan betray your worry.

"Tell me exactly what happened to Josh," you manage to get Wormler and all cumulative feet of faceheadneck into the van. He seemed to take up more volume the sadder he was.

"Josh and I had so so much fun at the zoo. He liked the tigers and flamingos and the snake house was very....relaxing for me. But we spent the most time in the penguin house because the sun was so close to earth yesterday." Ah yes that explained the excellent tan that Wormler was sporting.

"We laughed so much and ate many gummi Bears" (Gummi worms usually upset wormler--you discovered that the hard way)

"We were back on the bus and I was playing that plumbing game where the little red boy eats mushrooms when Josh looked all sad in the face. He said he was okay but his eyes looked like they did when he thinks about the near-me man."

"And- and- I know he likes the man that shares my body more than he likes me. But near-me isn't me! I just want Josh to like me a lot too" Wormler's once again began to leak, and you abandon caution to the wind. Flinging your arms around him, he lets you soothe him for a moment.

"So Josh climbed on the roof of the bus. And he was up there for awhile. I could hear him chanting, so I figured he was practicing a spell. But then i started feeling all tingly! And my neck hurt!"

"I opened up a window and stretched up to see him. And Joshua was standing in a circle with this small strummy thing, a mask, and he was splashing Mountain Dew everywhere as he chanted"

Your heart is beating fast. You could fill in the blanks that Wormler had not. How could he? Josh? He-he'd never. But sometimes we do crazy things for lost love. You know. ( _Fredrick. Dear Fredrick. How you long for their closeness. How you're sorry they're gone too. Why is the Yukon so far away!_ _You must put Fredrick out of your mind now. You must be strong for all of them._ )

"So he was doing a spell?" You ask through dry lips, pushing all thoughts of your own sordid life away.

"I dunno. Prolly," Wormler said, "Maybe summoning a Bad Big demon. He must be setting someone free. So I shouted 'Josh Dun!' After 425 milliseconds"

"And Joshua cried out in a major chord. And he slipped on the Mountain Dew. He seemed to hover in the air above the ground before he started to fall. I tried to catch him. I promise I did!"

"But then he sizzled and dissolved into lavender smoke that blew away before he reached the ground"

"He's Gone. He Left," wormler's tears turned suddenly to screams and you topple backwards, losing your breath.

"He's not gone. He's just....temporarily misplaced," the optimism is hard now. But an idea strikes you! "We just need something of his to guide us to him!"

Wormler sheds his coat revealing a collection of drumsticks, hats, a worn poster of David Duchovny, and empty boxes of Oreos taped to his body. "Pick your favorite."

You say hello to David, but the drumstick should suffice. Thankfully Lenny is always with you. An anchor of Josh's magic. You dip the red stick into Lenny's bowl. The happy fish swims in circles and the rams into it a few times. Maybe it's your wishful thinking, but the drumstick appears to glow and sparkle as you draw it from the tank.

With a magnificent flourish, the drumsticks fly from your hands and point to the right, insistently hovering and indicating. You clamber into the driver's seat and slam into gear, one hand securing Lenny's tank. Wormler goes bouncing around the back of the van as you take off at full speed. He doesn't seem to mind.

You drive for 19.2 minutes until a sharp left finds you in front of a gate. The gate of the fence that surrounds the zoo. The rescue team; you and Wormler, exit the van only slightly bruised and the drumsticks direct you through a hole in the fence. You vow to repay the zoo later.

Mass chaos. Birds everywhere. Emus fighting ostriches. Massive falcons swooping. Parrots saying very dirty words to smol children. And the penguins are waddling to go acquire ice cream.

The penguins!

You both go racing after the penguins who seem disinterested in the offerings of a SnapBack. Surely even penguin!josh would be instinctually interested in maintaining his cool style? Wouldn't he be obvious to distinguish if he was indeed a penguin?

The drumstick hits Wormler hard on the head, as if to say "wrong direction, bro!" And you both go off running towards the new, right path.

And then there they are. Blocking the path. A whole army of the feathered lawn ornaments. The flamingos watch your collective grand entrance, panting and sweaty. They are too elegant for you.

"Joshua?" Wormler asked hopefully, and then they attacked.

You both dive to the ground, Wormler on top and wrapping his faceheadneck around your body protectively as wing beats and angry beaks rain down and poke.

"Josh!" Wormler shrieked and lifted a small object into the air. It was a snow globe. Josh's snow globe. With a little Statue of Liberty inside.

The attack ceased immediately and you and Wormler separate. Even more bruised, with Wormler bleeding slightly.

The other flamingos moved away shamefully until there was one left standing alone. The pinkest, most fluffy of all the flamingos, watching you two with a head cocked in interest on a narrow neck.

Wormler approached the flamingo in scared anticipation, both of you holding breaths in case it scares the curious bird away. Wormler lifted the snow globe with his right hand and in the other hand reveals a single perfect Oreo.

"Josh?" Wormler asks again. Softer this time, hope growing and expanding to fill a stadium.

The flamingo moved forward, and ate the Oreo in a single gulp. With a delighted squawk, it entwined its neck with Wormler, who sheds only one tear this time. The tear landing upon the beautiful pink feathers, and then clouds of green smoke erupt. The flamingo is changing. Growing. Getting buffer.

And with a cymbal crash, Josh appears! He looks dazed. Sweaty. Eyes out of focus.

"We found you! You're back!" Wormler shrieks with delight and all the coils of his neck fall upon the disoriented drummer as Wormler nuzzles into his face.

"Tyler?" Josh groaned and sat up. He had a massive bruise on the side of his face and he nose was bleeding. Serves him right for attacking Tyler and you with his beak and flamingo minions.

"I'm not Him," Wormler cried out, celebratory air killed, "I'm sorry I'm not Him. I'm sorry you're stuck with me. But I care about you a lot, Joshua. I thought we had fun, but I guess I'm just overstaying my welcome again. I should prolly just leave so you can have near-me back."

Wormler began to slide away, but Josh shouted "No, wait! Stop, please!"

Wormler listened. "I'm sorry, Wormler. I'm being a dipcrap. You saved me. You are a good. I'm sorry. Thank you," Josh looked ashamed of himself, also rightfully so.

"You're sure I'm a good?" Wormler smiled wide.

"Of course. I was just being selfish. C'mon my friend, let's go see some cobras and boa constrictors. Maybe we can convince them to join our team," Josh took Wormler's hand. "Thank you," Josh said to you. "I left my bag of coins in the other pair of shorts. I'll IOU ok?"

You almost mention the fact the other coins are still stuck to the floor, but no. You don't want to ruin the moment of the two happy friends running to the snake house.

They go. You're surrounded by the penguins who are covered in warm fudge. Fudge looks delicious right now, but it'd be rude to lick a stranger without permission.

You head to your van wearing a new hat. It's a panda. You leave a hundred dollar bill in the collection box.

You open the door. An avalanche of Capri sun slides out and onto the pavement. You didn't put them there. But maybe lying upon enough would be like a makeshift waterbed.

"Have a good nap Lenny," you say to your marine friend who blurbs happily. He loves the new castle that has appeared in his tank. You didn't put it there.

You lie down. And sleep. Visions of fountains and pink feathers dancing in your tired head.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I am usually teeentyonepilots on tumblr. Come ask me about Wormler. I know many things.  
> Also this is my 50th fic and ALMOST MY BIRTHDAY!


End file.
